Habits

I am a disturbingly habitual person.  I’ve known this for a long time, and I’ve found peace and comfort in my habits.

My last year in college I would get up every Saturday at 5AM when no one else was awake and leave the house (trying not to disturb anyone, lest I alert the morning to its own quite existence).  I would take the bus and go downtown and get off one stop before the bus station.  This way I could walk down 16th street (along with last nights drunks and homeless) in total silence simply reflecting on the peace and emptiness of a city that was bustling all week long.  I’d stop in to get some coffee and read a book or study for a while, then I’d go to school and study some more and then go home.  This was a vacation for me, a habitual vacation.

After I graduated and was jobless for 6 months I woke up at 7AM, went and got coffee arriving generally around 8:30AM and stayed until generally 10AM.  I got “my” drink, I said “my” hello to the barista, and I sat (whenever it was available) at one of “my” favorite seats.  This semi structured lifestyle kept my head somewhat above water even though I was faced with the reality of joblessness.

Now that I have a job and am in fairly decent standing I am starting to realize the negative effects of my habituated lifestyle.

I didn’t realize it at first, I thought I was just kind of living life, doing that career thing you know.  Then my family started to come out to visit, and instead of feeling eager I felt anxious.  Why? I love having my family around, I love hanging out with them and talking to them and yet when they come to visit I feel anxious for no reason.

It donned on me when my parents last visited that the reason I feel so anxious when I do things with people is that I have compartmentalized my life to the extent that as soon as I break a single habit (ignoring whether it could be defined as a good or bad habit) I get anxious because that habit isn’t occurring as I expect it to.

It’s even worse when I don’t have people forcing me to break out of these habits, because then I can’t seem to find peace.  I want to read a book tonight, but I have a habit of watching a movie before bed and I don’t have time to do both, and so I put my desires for self-betterment asside and instead sit bored while I perform the habits that I have grown so sick of.  Instead of working out, instead of reading a book, instead of analyzing that algorithm I said I would look at, I perform my habitual routine of watching a movie.  It’s boring, but I still do it.

It surprises me that I would allow a habit to take over my wants and desires, when I have virtually no want or desire to actually do that habit other than for the simple reason that that’s what I’ve been doing.  So, I’ve realized that while habits can bring peace and comfort I’ve begun to feel trapped and oppressed by them.

reflections

I want so much to live simply, but I don’t know how.

Calm Rockers

I made this playlist a long time ago when I had napster (subscription service, not the illegal one).  At any rate I wanted to put it here for archiving, eventually I want to buy all these tracks.

A short description of the playlist is that is basically all calm songs by hard rock/punk bands (mostly).  I really like it, but I’ll let you decide. (FYI – they are not in any particular order, and some are explicit)

• Swing Life Away – Rise Against
• Good Riddance (Time of your life) – Green Day
• Chasing Cars – Snow Patrol
• The Gift – Seether
• Afterglow – INXS
• The Leaving Song – AFI
• Lonely Day – System of a Down
• Wish You Were Here (1992 Digital Remaster) – Pink Floyd
• Good Times (Album Version) – Tommy Lee
• Lazy Eye – Silversun Pickups

These weren’t a part of the original playlist but, I would probably add them as well (although I’m not sure they fit the mood of the playlist quite right, so I might not add them):

• Hey There Delilah – Plain White T’s
• Welcome to the Black Parade – My Chemical Romance
• Handlebars – Flobots

Anyway if anyone else trys out these tracks togethor you should tell me if you like it.

- Legit

Good thoughts from someone who unplugged!

In my blog reading I ran across Wayne Porters blog who apparently went off the grid (pretty completely) for 6 months, he has some really good and important reflections that I agree with:

“Most people no longer understand anything about the technology they use everyday and because of this ignorance many people use it without good stewardship. We drive cars we cannot fix, eat food we cannot make or produce, and many operate in an environment they do not understand with a false sense of security. We run and gun this technology with fuel that has probably reached its peak point.

This is what worry’s me about a lot of new technologies, a lot of bleeding edge science and engineering has scientists saying “this stuff is great, but we need to make sure to look at the ethics of it as well” (case in point, 6th paragraph: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/02/we-are-becoming-a-new-species-we-are-becoming-homo-evolutis.ars).  I’m always worried that as the technology and science trickles down to consumer level the ethics of it are lost because of what Porter is talking about.  Not understanding or being ignorant of the way in which something is created or what is required to make it work or its impacts, prevents people from seeing the ethical issues surrounding it, which prevents good stewardship.  It’s important to understand at least a little bit where and how something (technology, scientific process, scientific finding, engineering feats, etc.) came to be, in order to realize its ethical and moral impact on society.

This is one of the reasons that Artificial Intelligence research interests me so much, because at the very deepest and advanced areas are thousands of unanswered questions about the ethics of creating machines that “can” be trusted or are designed to be trusted.  I think a lot of science is like this, it reminds me of a quote of the mathematician in the original “Jurassic Park” movie:

“They are more concerned about whether or not they can to care about whether or not they should” (paraphrasing).

Porter highlights the overall ethics of creating social spaces in technology:

“I think we have finally sold our soul for digital trinkets, our privacy for another 10% discount, our lives for cashback, our planet for convenience and our autonomy to mega-corporations knowing full well they will destroy the very core of the communities in which we live. Not that it matters, we don’t know our neighbors anyway and we are prepared to mortgage future generations lives and their planet for plastic.”

Good stuff, you can read his entire post here: http://www.wayneporter.com/2009/03/22/the-end-of-wayne-unplugged/

It is well worth the read.
- Legit

Some recent Vimeo favorites

I have come to find that I am attracted to the juxtaposition of fast/happy video/life moments to soft and calming/reflective music. It makes you look at life a little differently. Here are some recent favorite videos some of them display this juxtaposition.

Voyage

Coeur de Pirate || Comme des enfants

You Put The  “FUN”  in Adventure Central!

A Thousand Words

Fifty People, One Question: Brooklyn

lost in a moment

A Summer I’ll Never See Again

And of course a cycle video to balance things out:

It’s Your Ride

And of course WordPress.com still has to get away from its youtube bias, so sorry I can’t embed them.